New York, as people really lived it.

THE FIRST DAY THAT ALMOST RUINED EVERYTHING

Milagros de Vedia and Barbara Fieg had traveled from Argentina to New York for a long-awaited vacation.

They had saved for three years to make the trip possible.

After arriving at JFK Airport in July 2016, they took the AirTrain and boarded the E subway train.

Then something went wrong.

Milagros accidentally left her purse on the train. Inside were passports, credit cards, a phone, and more than $3,000 in cash.

A Good Samaritan turned the bag in to the police.

NYPD officers used numbers from the phone to contact Milagros's sister in Buenos Aires, who helped them reach the travelers.

The women were reunited with their belongings. Their New York vacation had begun with a reminder that even in a city of strangers, someone might be looking out for you.

Why it mattersOne stranger's honesty and a little detective work rescued a vacation years in the making.

Source: ABC7 New York — Tourists reunited with lost money, passports thanks to Good Samaritan and NYPD

THE BAG WITH TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS

In December 2018, Richard Taverna spotted a Chanel bag on a bench at the 66th Street subway stop on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

He picked it up.

Inside was $10,000 in cash.

Richard didn't keep it.

He turned the bag and money over to police at the 20th Precinct.

The owner, Aiya Tulemaganbetova, had been preparing to travel home to Kazakhstan for the holidays and needed the cash for her trip.

The two later met in person.

She thanked Richard with a statue of Kazakhstan's Golden Man. A forgotten bag had become an unexpected connection between two New Yorkers.

Why it mattersHonesty doesn't need an audience. Sometimes it just needs someone willing to do the right thing.

Source: ABC7 New York — Grateful woman meets man who turned in $10,000 cash found in purse on Upper West Side subway platform

THE NEIGHBORHOOD THAT FOUND THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS

New York dog walker JJ Cerillo lost $300 at a bagel shop in Inwood.

The money was supposed to help pay her rent.

She called the shop, went back to search, and asked her neighborhood group chat whether anyone had found it.

Nobody had.

But a neighbor named Drew suggested something different: if two people joined him, he would put $10 toward replacing the missing money.

Other neighbors joined in.

Within 24 hours, JJ had her $300.

The original cash was never found.

Instead, a neighborhood had come together to replace it.

In a city famous for its crowds, a few neighbors had made one person's problem their shared concern.

Why it mattersSometimes kindness isn't about finding what was lost. It's about helping someone recover.

Source: ABC7 New York — NYC strangers join together to help Inwood dog walker recover lost rent money